Day: February 20, 2014

If there’s one thing Bitcoins can benefit from, it’s easier accessibility for first-time users. The process can be a bit daunting if you’re new to cryptocurrency, but [mayosmith] is developing an open Bitcoin ATM to help get coins in the hands of the masses. There are already some Bitcoin dispensers out there. The Lamassu is around 5k a pop, and then there’s always the option of low-tech Condom Vending Machine conversions.

[mayosmith’s] build is still in the proof-of-concept phase, but has some powerful functionality underway. The box is made from acrylic with a front plate of 12″x12″ aluminum sheet metal, held on by 2 aluminum angles and some bolts. Slots were carved out of the aluminum sheet for the thermal printer and for bill acceptor—the comments identify it as an Apex 7000. Inside is an Arduino with an SD Shield attached. Dollars inserted into the acceptor trigger the Arduino to spit out a previously-generated QR code for some coins via the thermal printer, though all values are pre-determined at the time of creation and stored sequentially on the SD card. Stick around for a quick video below, and check out the official page for more information: http://openbitcoinatm.org

Like a lot of us, [Andrea] has a habit of disassembling everything he runs into. He recently came across a fairly substantial motor he’d salvaged and envisioned its new life as a small circular saw.

[Andrea] bought new cutting discs, but the rest is salvage and scrap. He had already mounted the motor, pivot, belt, and gear to a wood block, so he added two more wood scraps for a base and a cutting surface. He screwed a metal L beam to one side of the surface block to keep the disc adjacent to the edge. A couple of washers keep the disc rotating freely. [Andrea] used a piece of hydraulic pipe and a cylindrical nut to attach the disc to the pivot. This assembly can be easily tightened by hand, so changing discs is a quick operation.

He kept the electrical as-is and mounted the box to the saw body. This 30W motor runs at ~600-1000RPM which isn’t fast enough to cut wood. Undeterred, [Andrea] plans to use it to cut steel bolts, copper circuit boards, and metal plates. If you need to cut through anything and everything, try this 700W DIY table saw.

The hack makes use of an old 24-pin dot matrix printer, which is now a MIDI compatible sound generator. It uses an Atmega8 and an FPGA connected to different parts of the original printer’s circuit board. The Atmega8 takes the incoming MIDI data and communicates it to the FPGA while driving the stepper motors for both the paper feed and print head. The FPGA on the other hand is responsible for the PWM to drive the individual printer pins. This means the printer can play up to 21 notes simultaneously, and it’s capable of taking in up to 16 MIDI channels, all with individual volume, pitch, and key velocity!

Flappy bird this, flappy bird that, we’re really not too sure how a clone of the original helicopter game became so darn popular. Anyway, [Fawn Qiu] — founder of MakeAnything — decided to hop on the bandwagon and made this awesome physical version of Flappy Bird!

She threw it together at the Tribeca Hacks Hackathon, and it uses an Arduino, two servo motors, a reed switch and some magnets. She was inspired by the original Mario in a Box game and this is a great example of her project MakeAnything, which is a technology project community which helps foster the new culture of STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) for kids and adults alike, in the United States. They believe that “with the right tool and instructions, we can all make anything and everything!”.

Stick around for the following video where [Fawn] takes it to the streets to let random strangers try their hand at the now iconic game!

It’s no secret Hackaday loves retrocomputers, classic hardware, and vintage tech. Now that we have a great way to present long-form projects, it only makes sense that we combine our loves with a new build. Over the next few months, I’ll be developing a homebrew computer based on the Motorola 68000 CPU, documenting everything along the way, and building a very capable piece of hardware that will end up hosting a few Hackaday webpages. I already have a solid start on the project and will be posting on our front page to discuss the major parts already in progress, and those yet to come.

There are a few reasons we’re taking on this project. With few exceptions, most of the homebrew projects we see are based around 8-bit micros – specifically the 6502 and Z80. 16 and 32-bit CPUs really aren’t that much more difficult to work with, and if we can spearhead a renaissance of the 68k, 65816, or even a 386 (!), we’re all for that. Also, it’s been suggested that we host the Hackaday Retro site on retro hardware, and what better way to do that by documenting a build on our new project hosting site?

That’s a very brief introduction to this project. Let’s take a closer look at what hardware we’ll be using, what software we’ll get running, and what you can do to help.

A clock to tell the weather? [Andrew] has created a device to do that and more. Inspired by [Sean’s] weather clock, [Andrew’s]clock displays the current weather conditions, temperature, moon phase, and of course the time. The whole project started years ago with a broken keyboard. [Andrew] wanted to try to use the keyboard controller PCB as a bidirectional computer interface. Data to the computer would go in via the key matrix. Output data would be read via the status LEDs. Cheap simple microcontroller boards like the Arduino sidelined the project for a few years, but he never completely left it behind.

With an unused OLPC XO-1 in hand, [Andrew] pulled out his old keyboard controller and started hacking. His first task was getting meaningful data out of the keyboard LEDs. He coded up his own keyboard led control library in python. On the hardware side an op amp took on the roll of a comparator to ensure proper logic levels were present. [Andrew] then hooked two LEDs up as clock and data lines to standard 74 series shift registers (most likely 74HC/HCT595). He found that his data was completely garbled due to bounce. A second shift register buffering the clock cleaned things up. [Andrew] was left with a stable 40 bits per second serial link to his shift registers. With all this done, the next step was the clock itself. [Andrew] bought a RUSCH Wall clock from IKEA, and converted the clockwork to a gear reduction for a DC motor he pulled from an old answering machine. He could now move the hands at will, but had no way to determine their position. IR break beam sensors from old printers came to the rescue.

After connecting the motor drive, [Andrew] still had a number of outputs available. A few LEDs were in his parts box, so into the project they went. 12 LEDs around the outside of the clock to display the current time. 3 LEDs hide behind the weather icons as status indicators. [Andrew’s] python software really ties this together. His OLPC grabs data from the internet and displays it on the clock. A web interface allows the user to perform manual updates on the clock and to set alarms. The alarms even incorporate speech output via eSpeak. We love the reuse and recycling of parts in this hack. The end result is a clock any hacker would be proud to display on their wall.

[Crenn] obtained a string of official companion cube lights from Valve, but being in Australia couldn’t put them to their non-judgemental glory without the use of a step down transformer. They sat on the workbench for a few months until an idea was hatched: replace the bulbs with an Adafruit Neopixel strip, making these wonderful inanimate friends a string of individually addressable RGB LEDs.

The process of converting these cubes required stuffing a very small 9.4mm PCB inside. This PCB was designed in KiCAD thanks to a few classes at the Melbourne hackerspace. The board files were sent off, PCBs received, soldered up, and stuffed into the cubes.

Control is via a Duemilanove with a single IO pin using the Neopixel library. All the code, board files, and schematics are available on the gits. Future improvements might include a 3D printed cable relief and a way to securely mount the PCBs to the inside of the cubes.